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This article outlines the research and development of a blockchain assessment framework which enables the assessment of the technical suitability, high-level design, adoption approach, economic feasibility, and business value potential of a blockchain solution with a particular organization for a specific process. The framework is a comprehensive, high-level, and generic assessment approach that enables better decision-making regarding blockchain exploration. Blockchain is a novel technology with the potential to disrupt several industries through its possession of many desirable functional characteristics, including, but not limited to, immutability, transparency, decentralization, and secure. Cryptocurrencies and these desirable characteristics have created hype around blockchain, consequently leading to blockchain projects with minimal understanding of what the technology is capable of and beneficial for, resulting in excessively high failure rates. Attempts have been made by researchers to reduce these high failure rates by creating a better understanding of blockchain, as well as creating assessment approaches. However, these approaches tend to apply to specific narrow use cases, or the approach is not comprehensive and only considers one aspect of blockchain assessment. This emphasizes the need for a comprehensive and generic blockchain assessment approach to aid with better decision-making regarding blockchain within organizations. This article aims at addressing this need by creating a blockchain assessment framework to aids with deciding whether it is worthwhile investing more time, effort, and money into blockchain exploration. The context of the study is set in the introduction, this is then followed by a brief explanation of the blockchain technology. Thereafter, the blockchain assessment framework is presented, followed by a brief explanation of the demonstration and validation of the framework using a case study and expert analysis. The framework is most valuable during the initial stages of blockchain exploration and creates momentum for further blockchain exploration in an organization. The study concludes with the limitations and future research recommendations.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common occurrence that results in neuronal death with hazardous long-term effects. Modeling TBI computationally is necessary in order to gain a better understanding of mechanical effects on neurobiological injury cascades and injury thresholds. A model of a single axon was submitted to accelerations observed in the sport of American Football to test for axonal membrane strains necessary to induce an apoptosis pathway. A neuronal membrane strain of 0.20 [1] has been found to cause a Ca2+ influx necessary to initiate a neuronal degradation pathway. The proposed model sought to identify if accelerations in American Football could cause such detrimental strains. To test this, forces were applied in three directions: parallel to the axon, normal to the axon, and rotational about the axon to account for the multiple orientations forces can act upon to cause neuronal strain. Results from the different orientations with varying force magnitudes made it clear that stresses applied rotationally are the most detrimental and can cause a strain of 0.200 at an acceleration as low as 45g. Accelerations of 45g or greater are found in approximately 10% of the impacts observed in college football [2]. The resulting data from this model can be extrapolated to a larger scale to benefit the design of better head protection to include protection from shear forces.